LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
__ gY45o|. 

Shelf X 53 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Christian 



Growth, 



BY 



O. P. FITZGERALD, D.D., 



Editor of the Christian Advocate. 



"Grow up into Him." Eph. iv. 15. 






No..^6^i>T>v 



NmsJiviJJe? Tennessee ; 

Southern Methodist Publishing House, 

1882. 

ON 



f63 



Tag Library 
©i* Congress 

WASHINGTON 



Copyright Secured. 



s (Wj® S) tt). 

PREFACE. 



A /T AY the souls for whom these pages were written be 
blessed in reading them ! May the Lord, to whom 
they are humbly dedicated, accept them! Amen. 

The Author. 

Nashville, April, 1882. 



•o-j-^r©^ 



(9 q) 




Prefatory Note from Bishop H, H, Kavanaugh, , 

O. P. Fitzgerald, D.D. — My Dear Brother: — At a late 
interview which I recently enjoyed at your house with 
yourself and family, you were pleased to read to me what 
you called "the germ" of a treatise you have written on 
Christian Growth — a very profitable subject to be pru- 
dently discussed. It is well to know the measure of the 
privilege to which we are called in the gospel of the grace 
of God. To come at this, you have wisely made the spirit- 
ual birth and growth of the soul the basis of that work of 
grace that affects man's moral purity and salvation, giving 
it a "meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light." 

This "birth and growth" are what the Scriptures make 
most prominent in presenting this subject. "As new-born 
babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may 
grow thereby." (1 Pet. ii. 2.) "Till we all come in the 
unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, 
unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
fullness of Christ : that we henceforth be no more children, 
tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doc- 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



trine, by the sleight of men." (Eph. iv. 13, 14.) But I need 
not multiply quotations — you have attended to that. I am 
glad that these essential features of the work of grace — the 
grace of sanctification — are so clearly brought out in your 
new work on the subject. I trust that it will be read *by 
many to edification, comfort, and a large growth in grace, 
that they may know the truth that shall make them free — 
free indeed. H. H. Kavanatjgh. 

Louisville, Ky., February 28, 1882. 





CONTENTS, 



A First Word 9 

The New Birth 13 

Evidences 21 

Growth 27 

Christian Childhood 32 

The Bible 40 

Other Beading 49 

Meditation. 56 

Prayer 64 

Associations 78 

Talk 85 

Giving 93 

Sorrow. 103 

The Goal 112 



A FIRST WORD. 

' ' Come now, and let us reason together. ' ' Isaiah i. 1 8. 

r I ^HE Christian life includes birth and 
-*■ growth. There is nothing besides or 
beyond these. 

It is a sublime paradox that the believer's 
inheritance will never be forfeited nor fully 
possessed. It embraces earth and heaven, 
eternity and God. It is an infinite blessing, 
worthy to be the gift of the infinite Creator. 
It is a satisfying portion — satisfying, not in 
the sense that a goal is reached beyond which 
nothing more is wished and looked for, but in 
the sense that growth is begun under condi- 
tions that make a relapse unnecessary and 
eternal continuance possible. 

Growth is the one w r ord that includes all 

(0) 



10 A FIRST WORD. 

the precious truth that has been mystified by- 
disputants who have injected their metaphys- 
ics into the crystal waters of salvation, mud- 
dying the stream and impeding its flow. 

The gospel is not a riddle, but a revelation. 
It is not a labyrinth in which the inquirer 
must wander endlessly without finding the 
clew. Men have made mysteries where God 
has made none. He bids all to a feast where 
the table is spread, and of which they may 
freely partake — not to a chemical laboratory 
where the different dishes must be analyzed, 
weighed, or measured. Those who have taste 
and talent for this sort of thing may indulge 
their fancy, but let them not forbid us to 
eat until they have laid aside their crucibles, 
scales, and compasses. We cannot afford to 
starve in the midst of plenty. 

The attempt has been made to map out the 
Christian life as if it were a quarter-section 
of land, the title to which depended on an ex- 
act survey of its boundaries. We have been 
halted on the bank of the river of God until 



A FIRST WORD. 11 

we should be able to utter some shibboleth 
framed by men prone to doubtful disputa- 
tions. We have been stopped at toll-gates, 
and required to pay tribute to technical quib- 
blers before they will permit us to travel on 
the highway of holiness. When we have asked 
for the bread of life, they have given us the 
stone of contention. When we have hungered 
for the fresh manna from heaven, they have 
given us the stale and moldy Gibeonitish 
crusts of old controversies. When our souls 
have yearned for the unclouded vision of Im- 
manuel's face, a curtain of mystery has been 
interposed. When we have listened to hear 
that word which is spirit and life, we have 
been confused by an abracadabra invented by 
men who would, if they could, put their mint- 
mark on the gold that overlays the ark, illumed 
by the blazing Shekinah itself. 

In the Sermon on the Mount our Lord swept 
away the mists from the sky, and made the 
path of the new life plain to all who are will- 
ing to walk therein. The Scribes and Phari- 



12 A FIRST WORD. 

sees were astonished because with authority- 
he affirmed intuitive and self-evident truths. 
The sum of his teaching is love to God and 
man. 

Jesus says: "I am the door: by me if any 
man enter in, he shall go in and out, and find 
pasture." Master, we will accept thy gra- 
cious invitation! We will not shiver with cold 
and starve on the outside because some of our 
brethren have written things hard to be under- 
stood. 

The conditions and possible measure of 
Christian growth concern us now. In other 
words, we are to inquire what our Lord pro- 
poses to give us, and the terms of its bestow- 
ment. Some plain words are offered on the life 
that we now live as believers — a life that takes 
in all of earth, and links itself to all of heaven. 
Spirit of truth, guide our thought! Amen. 




THE NEW BIRTH. 

"Ye must be born again" John iii. 7. 

'THHE beginning of the Christian life is the 
^ new birth. The new birth is the renew- 
al of human nature by the grace of God. 

The new birth is necessary. "Without it no 
soul can enter the kingdom of heaven. This 
work is effected by the Holy Spirit. 

The new birth is just what the words imply. 
" Except a man be born again, he cannot see 
the kingdom of God." (John iii. 3.) "That 
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that 
which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (John 
iii. 6.) It is the w r ork of the Holy Spirit. 
" The wind bloweth where it listeth, and 
thou nearest the sound thereof, but canst not 
tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so 

(13) 



14 THE NEW BIRTH. 

is every one that is born of the Spirit." (John 
iii. 8.) These words of our Lord are conclu- 
sive. The mystery of the new birth he did 
not attempt to explain. The fact is enough, 
and the experience satisfies. Birth and growth 
must not be confounded. The analogies be- 
tween natural and spiritual birth will suggest 
all that is needed by the ingenuous reader. 
The new birth is the phrase used by the Holy 
Spirit to describe that transaction by which 
the soul is translated from darkness to light, 
and enters upon the new life of faith, obedi- 
ence, and love. You do not grow into this 
new life — you are born into it. The growth 
comes afterward. 

The antecedent preparation for the new birth 
may cover a wide space of time, but there is a 
precise point in which the process is consum- 
mated, as the rotary motion of the earth brings 
sunrise at a particular moment. This supreme 
moment comes to every soul that enters the 
new life — as gently as sunrise itself to some, 
and with throes of mighty conflict to others. 



THE NEW BIRTH. 15 

Timothy is the type of the early beginner in 
the Christian life. From a child he knew the 
Scriptures. His religious tendency was in an 
important sense hereditary. This was from 
the maternal side, as is often the case. A 
holy mother and grandmother transmitted 
to him religious susceptibilities, aptitudes, a 
genius for godliness, and made for his life an 
atmosphere warm with holy love and bright 
with the light of truth. Yet this did not pre- 
clude the necessity for the new birth, without 
which no soul can enter the kingdom of heaven. 
In such a case we may believe that the process 
was as gentle as the bursting of a bud into 
flower in the spring-time, when the sunshine 
and the rain have warmed and watered the 
roots of the plant. It is possible that he could 
fix no precise date for this experience. A 
Christian childhood cannot always be dated as 
you would the conversion of a heathen. Such 
a childhood has its revelations from God direct 
to the plastic soul. Ofttimes it has experi- 
ences that are vivid to the memory forever. 



16 THE NE W BIRTH. 

In the cases of ministers of Christ it has pre- 
monitions of the coming career that are aston- 
ishing to such as forget that for every human 
life God has a definite plan and purpose. 
Samuel heard in his boyhood the Voice that 
he was to repeat and interpret to his people in 
his manhood. There have been thousands of 
Timothies in the Church. There ought to be 
millions. He should now be the normal type 
of regeneration in Christian families. It will 
be so, we do believe, in the near future. The 
signs of the times justify the hope of a speedy 
and mighty advance in dealing with this ques- 
tion of childhood in the Church. Childhood 
in the Church! the very words have the sweet- 
ness of millennial music to the ear of faith. 
The path to universal Christian childhood in 
the Church lies through a wiser, holier man- 
hood and womanhood in the Church. The 
gain henceforth will be rapid, and the consum- 
mation will hasten. As leaven the truth with 
regard to this matter is working in the mass 
of Christendom, the hearts of the parents are 



\ 



THE NEW BIRTH. 17 

turning to the children, and Jesus is saying 
in all the languages spoken on earth, Feed my 
lambs. 

As Timothy is the one type of the Christian 
life, Paul may be taken as the other. Both 
were regenerated, but under different condi- 
tions. The change in Paul's case involved his 
opinions, associations, aims, affections — every 
thing. It was sudden. The shock was mighty, 
wrenching him violently from the old and 
starting him in a new life. The phenomena 
in his case were more striking, but the result 
was not more real than in that of Timothy. 
The work done in each was substantially the 
same. We err when we insist upon either 
type as the exclusive test of the genuineness 
of the profession of any who name the name 
of Jesus. 

The process of the conversion of the treas- 
urer of Queen Candace was essentially iden- 
tical with those of Timothy and Paul. He 
was hungering for the truth, and his receptive 
soul responded to its claims at once when the 
2 



18 THE NEW BIRTH. 

zealous deacon taught him out of the Script- 
ures. The account is brief, and not without 
design. The man's antecedents ^re unknown 
except that he was a seeker. He sought and 
found. His receptive soul attracted to him 
the agency that conveyed to him his Heavenly 
Father's loving answer to his cry for light and 
salvation. He knocked in the darkness^ ancl 
the door opened into the light. The whole 
narrative is full of divine beauty, and is pro- 
phetic of the time when all the highways of 
this world will be trod by Christian travelers 
who will preach Jesus as they go, and send 
millions of converts on their journeys, boru 
of God and rejoicing in the truth. 

Then there is Cornelius, a man responsive 
to the claims of humanity, the attitude of 
whose soul toward truth and goo4ness was 
such that the moment his heart was touched 
by the word of truth it blossomed into life. 

The new birth must precede the new life in 
all cases. But this is not saying that there is 
a uniform type of religious experience in all 



THE NE W BIR TH 19 

who are truly born of God. There are divers 
manifestations, but only one Spirit. The ac- 
companying phenomena are as different as the 
temperaments of individuals and their circum- 
stances. Some natures bloom out at the first 
touch of grace like the early peach-blooms in 
March, while others, like the gnarled and 
sturdy oak, are slower in responding to the 
kisses of the sun. It is no evidence that you 
are not born again because your experience 
differs from that of some holy man or woman 
whom you love or admire. It is no proof that 
the gracious change has not been wrought be- 
cause you cannot fix the date. Neither is its 
genuineness discounted because you are able 
to identify the very day and hour and the spot 
when you were converted. The marks of the 
new birth are plain enough to one who exam- 
ines himself, Bible in hand, with a prayerful 
heart. 

The Author of our salvation has not left us 
to grope on in doubt and darkness with ref- 
erence to the most momentous of all questions. 



20 



THE NEW BIRTH. 



It is what we might expect from his goodness, 
that the degree of certainty in all things per- 
taining to our destiny is proportioned to the 
value of the interest at stake. Health, tem- 
poral prosperity, the duration of the present 
life, are as uncertain as they are inferior in 
importance. But when it comes to the rela- 
tion of the soul to God — a question where all 
is at stake — then certainty is promised and 
given to every believer. 



E VIDENCES. 

' c He that believeth on the Son of God hath the wit- 
ness in himself." i John v. io. 

TT has been said that no believer need be 
-*- uncertain with regard to the new birth. 
If there could be no certainty about it, the 
Christian life would be indeed an unsatisfy- 
ing, gloomy thing. Guesses will not satisfy 
the soul when heaven and hell are in the bal- 
ances. Doubt is torturing when a failure is 
without remedy. 

Am I a child of God? Have I been born 
again? The evidence within reach will deter- 
mine this matter for every one who will enter 
upon the inquiry with humility, candor, and 
earnestness. What are the marks? 

The first is a spirit of obedience. This is 

(21) 



22 EVIDENCES. 



comprehensive and, to a large degree, conclu- 
sive. The carnal mind is enmity against God. 
Enmity against God expresses itself in oppo- 
sition to his law. The unregenerate fail to re- 
alize their enmity to God and his law because 
there are only moral sanctions now, and the 
penalty of disobedience is reserved for the 
future life. "By this we know that we love 
the children of God, when we love God, and 
keep his commandments." (1 John v. 2.) The 
true righteousness of the law is fulfilled in all 
who are born of the Spirit — that is, the right- 
eousness of an obedience that springs from 
love in a renewed heart. (Romans viii. 4.) 
Wherever there is a spirit of obedience to God 
there is a renewed nature. The absence of 
this spirit nullifies all claim to the new birth. 
But let no one conclude that he is not a true 
believer because crosses are sometimes heavy, 
and the shrinking human nature complains 
when the path is rugged, and the burden makes 
him stagger and faint. A great sorrow may 
stun and paralyze the soul for a time, and it 



EVIDENCES. 23 



may not be able to say, "Thy will be done," 
and yet there may be in the depths of the 
troubled heart a principle of obedience that 
would enable its possessor to die rather than 
willfully disobey God. Out of temporary 
darkness the true child of God always comes 
stronger than before. The principle of holy 
obedience is inwrought into the innermost 
fibers of the soul when it is fused anew in 
the white heat of sorrow's crucible. Its nor- 
mal state and action restored, the soul accepts 
the Divine will without reserve, saying with a 
new depth of meaning and the emphasis of a 
blessed experience, "Thy commandments are 
not grievous." Whoso can say this intelli- 
gently and heartily has been born again. 

Another mark of the new birth is love to- 
ward Christians. " We know that we have 
passed from death unto life, because we love 
the brethren." This love is not to be con- 
founded with natural affection and friendships, 
based upon congeniality of disposition, identi- 
ty of interest, or agreement in opinion. It is 



24 EVIDENCES. 



a love to Christians as Christians — because 
they are Christians. The heart of this matter 
was touched by a Presbyterian lady who, when 
asked whether she loved believers of other 
Churches as she did those of her own Com- 
munion, said, thoughtfully and gently, "Yes; 
I love alike all who bear the image of my 
Saviour." Love to Christ is the bond of union 
between his followers. They are near to each 
other when they are near to him. They are 
one in him. This tie does not supersede social 
and conventional relationship and association, 
but it is stronger and more sacred than any 
merely worldly bond. Like seeks like. This 
law never fails to be a discerner of the real 
affinities of souls. If you love Christians, you 
will be drawn toward them. In their company 
you will find a pleasure not found elsewhere in 
the world. Christians think the same thoughts, 
have the same feelings, entertain the same 
hopes — the same blessed destiny awaits them. 
They are born of the same Spirit, and this gives 
them essential identity of nature and destiny. 



EVIDENCES. 25 



The new birth is the cohesive bond uniting. all 
regenerate souls. And this new birth is the 
only solid basis for the Christian unity longed 
for by all truly Christian hearts, and prayed for 
by our Lord just before his crucifixion. When 
all are baptized into one Spirit they may be 
gathered into one fold. Then there will be one 
peaceful flock following the one Shepherd, who 
will lead them into green pastures and beside 
the still waters. Then they shall all be one, 
as Jesus and his Father are one, and the sacer- 
dotal prayer of our Lord will be answered in 
all the fullness and graciousness of its mean- 
ing. That day will come, for 

The Father hears him pray, 

His dear Anointed One ; 
He cannot tarn away 

The presence of his Son. 

A man is known by the company he prefers. 
If you prefer Christian society because it is 
Christian, it is an evidence that you have been 
born into the Christian life. This test will not 
lead you astray. Try yourself by it. The re- 



26 EVIDENCES. 



suit will give you occasion to rejoice with ex- 
ceeding joy, or to go to your knees in peniten- 
tial supplication. 

There is another mark o£ the new birth, or 
of entrance into the new life. That mark is 
the direct witness of God to the heart. " The 
Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that 
we are the children of God." (Romans viii. 16.) 
Filial love springs up in the heart that has 
been changed by saving grace. Though the 
truth may be imperfectly grasped as a tenet of 
dogmatic theology, the feeling is there. 

The Spirit answers to the blood, 
And tells me I am born of God. 

A believer need not go outside of his own 
consciousness in this matter. "He that believ- 
eth on the Son of God hath the witness in him- 
self" (1 John v. 10.) God certifies his own 
gracious work. 



GROWTH. 

"Grow in grace" 2 Peter iii. 18. 

r ~pHUS born into the Christian life, the 
A child of God has but one thing before 
him henceforth and forever, and that is growth. 
No new faculties will ever be given him. His 
moral nature, comprising intellect, sensibility, 
and will, is as complete as is the body of a 
child well developed in form and feature. 
But the one must grow as must the other. 
As the means of physical growth are provided 
for the body, so the means of spiritual growth 
are provided for the soul. 

All theories of the Christian life that set 
aside the idea of unceasing growth are mis- 
leading. There is a Beyond to every goal in 
Christian experience. From every height a 

(27) 



28 GROWTH. 



still higher summit invites you. When a man 
tells you he is fully saved, he speaks truly if 
he is abiding in Christ by a living faith; but 
if he mean that he has no more battles to fight, 
no more growth to make in the Christian life, 
he deceiveth himself. If he does not forget 
the things that are behind, and reach forth to 
those that are before, he will fall into dark- 
ness. The perfect consecration is a consecra- 
tion perpetually renewed. The perfect love is 
a stream fed forever from the Fountain through 
faith that lives and works. Thorough work 
is what God proposes, and it is what we want. 
No soul can be converted on a basis of nar- 
rower purpose and expectation than this: the 
whole soul and body, for time and eternity, 
must be set apart to the service of God by an 
act of the will, by the help of the Holy Spirit, 
before you can be an accepted believer in 
Jesus Christ. You may call this initial sanc- 
tification if you will, or you may call it justi- 
fication only. Only! By the use of that word 
we would not undervalue the blessing of rec- 



GROWTH. 29 



onciliation with God, the pardon of sin, and 
birth into the life of the Lord. Only! Only 
paradise to the dying thief, only the begin- 
ning of life eternal to millions who have been 
justified by faith, and entered into the joys of 
salvation. Only! No soul was ever justified 
while cherishing any thought, desire, or pur- 
pose, inconsistent with a consecrated soul. The 
blood of Jesus cleanses from sin every justi- 
fied soul. The uncleansed soul cannot be fit 
for the family of God on earth or in heaven. 
Forgiveness and cleansing are not separable 
in fact. To remove the eruption of small-pox 
from the patient, and leave the seeds of the 
disease in the system, would be a very unsatis- 
factory sort of treatment. God does not do 
his work after that sort. Every pardoned sin- 
ner is also a purified sinner. Salvation by the 
blood of Christ is salvation from sin — not 
merely absolution from its penalty. The par- 
don of a criminal by human authority may be 
wholly arbitrary, and without confession, re- 
pentance, change of disposition, or promise of 



30 GROWTH. 



amendment on the part of the offender. But 
God does not promise or bestow pardon except 
on these conditions, compliance with which in- 
volves a change of the heart and life. All the 
talk about justification being a judicial act in 
the mind of God is meaningless if you leave 
out of the question the fact that the whole 
transaction means a new heart and a new life, 
These analogies mislead when thus used. The 
Holy Ghost is shed abroad in every soul jusfcL 
fiecl by faith. Who will tell us that this joy 
of the Holy Ghost is given to a soul yet unr 
cleansed? Justification is the restoration of 
the soul to the image, as well as the favor, of 
God. The grace that pardons purifies. The 
blood that atones also cleanses. Then let no 
justified soul be chilled into silence or doubt 
when it would sing its song of joy: 

O the rapturous height Of that holy delight 
Which I felt in the life-giving blood ! 

Of my Saviour possessed, I was perfectly blessed, 
As if filled with the fullness of God. 

Good men have done bad work in this mat* 



GROWTH. 



31 



ter. They have clouded landscapes that were 
bright with the smile of the Lord. They have 
checked songs of triumph from hearts bound- 
ing with joy, and turned them into the sighings 
of despondency. They have changed the voice 
of loving testimony to a sin-pardoning Saviour 
into painful questionings. The Christian life 
is perfect at every stage" — for that stage. All 
its ways are ways of pleasantness and peace. 
It is life in God — healthy, happy life — perfect 
in every stage of its development from birth to 
maturity, from justification to glorification. 




CHRISTIAN CHILDHOOD. 

i( As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the 
word, that ye may grow thereby." i Peter ii. 2. 

JESUS set a child in the midst of his ambi- 
tions and contentions disciples, and point- 
ed to it as the true type of the kingdom of 
God. The Apostle Paul, on the other hand, 
makes it matter of reproach to certain persons 
that they were babes in the Christian life. 
The apostle has reference to those who had 
been converted years before, and had the means 
of grace within their reach, but had not grown. 
" When for the time ye ought to be teachers, 
ye have need that one teach you again which 
be the first principles of the oracles of God." 
They were forgetting the very A B C of Chris- 
tian truth and Christian living. Remember 
(32) 



CHRISTIAN CHILDHOOD. 33 

who these people were. They were the contem- 
poraries of those who had seen and talked with 
the Lord Jesus Christ; who had been present 
at the Pentecost, and seen its tongues of flame, * 
and felt its breath of power; who were wit- 
nesses of the resurrection and ascension of the 
Lord. They were the fruits of an apostolic 
ministry. These were the men, and these 
were the women, who had stopped short in 
their Christian course, and relapsed into the 
feebleness and imbecility of spiritual baby- 
hood. Shame on them! you say. The words 
of the apostle are half -reproachful, half -indig- 
nant: When you ought to be men and women 
of full stature, strong in faith, well-instructed 
in the things of God, and able to help oth- 
ers, you are but sickly infants. The apostle 
intended no disparagement of childhood — 
healthy, natural, growing childhood. There 
is beauty and sweetness in childhood, both 
natural and spiritual. A little girl, four or 
five years old, well developed in form and feat- 
ure, is a beautiful and attractive object. She 



34 CHRISTIAN CHILDHOOD. 

has in her all the potentialities of sweet maid- 
enhood, blooming womanhood, and matronly 
grace and dignity. But let her stop growing 
at this age, and live to be forty years old. 
Forty years old, and not a yard high! That 
is not childhood — that is dwarfhood, stunted 
growth, arrested development. Or take a 
healthy, well-formed boy of five years. There 
is an attractive object, because in him are all 
the possibilities of a strong and noble man- 
hood. But let him stop growing at that age, 
and live on until he is forty years old. There 
he stands, mature in years, with his whiskers, 
men's clothing, and mannish ways — and yet he 
is not more than a yard high! That is not the 
beauty of childhood — it is the repulsiveness 
of dwarfhood. There is none of the fresh- 
ness, sweetness, and bloom, of childhood, nor 
the strength, and dignity, and wisdom, of man- 
hood. The Churches are crowded with these 
stunted growths — spiritual dwarfs, that long 
ago ceased to groiv. 

Many Christians remember well the bios- 



CHRISTIAN CHILDHOOD. 35 

soming-time in tlieir religious experience, and 
often revert to it with joy. Sometimes a mis- 
take is made at this point. Excellent Chris- 
tian men and women look back to that period 
as the brightest and best of all. This onght 
not to be so. To-day, not yesterday, onght to 
be the best day. But there is a law of the 
mind that makes all first impressions the most 
vivid. A first experience of any kind is the 
most lasting in the memory. The first fish a 
boy catches, the first deer he shoots, is never 
forgotten. The first time the momentous ques- 
tion is asked and responded to by young lovers 
is a memory that is never lost. The first 
Christian experiences are for this reason the 
most vivid. So the believer may have grown 
in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ as 
the years have rolled on, and he may be wiser, 
stronger, and, in the deepest sense, more 
blessed, but the first love still stands out in his 
memory with the vividness of a first impres- 
sion, and is a joy forever. So it ought to be. 
A happy conversion and first experience is a 



36 CHRISTIAN CHILDHOOD. 

joy for time and eternity. But this is not the 
best part of a true Christian life. The blos- 
soms of early rapture perfume all the air, but 
when the blossoms have fallen and faded the 
fruit appears. The morning-glory on the hills 
at sunrise is ravishing, but the midday radi- 
ance is brighter, and the twilight calm is 
sweeter. A true life is all blessed, but the 
best wine is at the last of the feast. The mat- 
in-song of the new-born soul is joyful, but there 
is a diviner sweetness in the song of the night 
when the Comforter touches the chords of the 
sorrowing heart. The first days were not the 
best, though they were blessed, and will be 
sweet to the memory forever. 

That was a blessed experience of Jacob at 
Bethel, when he had the glorious vision of the 
mysterious ladder, with its foot on the earth, 
and its top in the starry depths of the heavens, 
and the angels of God ascending and descend- 
ing thereon. But on the banks of the Jabbok, 
long afterward, he had a more glorious mani- 
festation of God, when in his trouble and peril 



CHRISTIAN CHILDHOOD. 



37 



he wrestled with the Angel of the Covenant 
and prevailed. Our Jabboks bring us nearer 
to God than our Bethels. 

Your life may be blessed and brightened 
with many seasons of special grace and joy, 
but let nothing of the sort expel from your 
thought and your desire the idea of growth. 
Every such special blessing is a new starting- 
point from a higher plane — not a stopping- 
place. 

The concentric circles in an oak a century 
old show the growth of every year — each com- 
plete in itself ; but all massed together to form 
the mighty trunk of the monarch of the forest. 
Cut into it, and you will find that its heart is 
sound. This insured its growth, though its 
branches might at times be twisted and torn, 
and its roots shaken by tempests. So is Chris- 
tian experience in the heart of a true believer. 
Deep-rooted in faith, and sound at the core of 
a loving heart, it adds grace to grace, strength 
to strength — every blessed manifestation of 
God preparing the way for another. Its 



CHRISTIAN CHILDHOOD. 



growth is continuous. The storms of temp- 
tation do not overthrow it. The infirmities 
that may in some measure mar the perfect 
symmetry and beauty of the spiritual life do 
not stop its development. Do not mistake 
temptation for apostasy or backsliding. Do 
not be disheartened because you fall short 
of the perfection you covet. Be sure you are 
sincere in your purpose to follow Christ, and 
keep alive the longing for all that your Lord 
proposes to bestow. This purpose itself is a 
heavenly growth in your soul. This longing 
is a seed that will grow into a mighty harvest 
of blessedness to you. The measure of holy 
aspiration is the measure of possible attain- 
ment by the child of God. It is God that 
worketh in you. Do not limit the Holy One 
of Israel. The desires that he enkindles he 
will satisfy. The hope he sets before you 
shall come to fruition. The best that is in 
your thought he will put into your life. Your 
wish cannot go beyond his willingness and his 
resources. He shall give you the utmost de- 



CHRISTIAN CHILDHOOD. 39 

sire of your heart. In you shall be fulfilled 
all the good pleasure of his goodness. The 
Author of your faith will be its Finisher — its 
Finisher in the sense that no part of all that 
he hath promised shall fail. His promises are 
exceeding great and precious, and in their ful- 
fillment we are made partakers of the Divine 
nature, and made meet for the inheritance of 
the saints in light. 

This is a summary expression of the truth 
that you may go on increasing in likeness to 
God, being changed into the same image from 
glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord, 
and that you may become more and more fit- 
ted for the holy companionships and joys of 
the city of God. 

We propose to consider specifically the 
means of promoting growth in the Christian 
life. 




THE BIBLE. 

' ' Thy 7Vord is a lamp unto my feet, and a light 
unto my path" Psalm cxix. 105. 

A /TILLIONS of persons even in Christian 
- ▼ A lands are unable to read. The Bible is 
to them- a sealed book, except as it may be read 
and expounded in their hearing by others. 
Their ignorance is in most cases involuntary; 
it is not their fault that they must take the 
word of life at second-hand. God will make 
due allowance for all such. Little being given, 
little will be required. Only willful ignorance 
is punishable. Responsibility is measured by 
opportunity. The gate of heaven is not shut 
against any but the willfully disobedient. A 
humble soul, receptive of truth, and turned to 
the Lord in the attitude of loving obedience, 
(40) 



THE BIBLE. 41 



becomes wise in the things of God, being 
taught of the Holy Spirit. The pure heart 
mirrors correctly every image of heavenly 
truth that falls upon it, while the evil heart 
gives a distorted reflection, though the intel- 
lect may be ever so keen and cultured. The 
world by wisdom knows not God. They who 
will do his will shall know of the doctrine. 
On these equitable principles our Father in 
heaven deals with all his children. His ways 
are equal. He writes his law in the heart from 
which the written word is withheld. As many 
as are led by the Spirit of God they are the 
sons of God, and they have the witness in 
themselves. 

For the reader of this book there can be no 
valid excuse. The pages of the blessed Bible 
are open to you. The book was given you 
that it might be a light to your path, and a 
lamp to your feet. Its words are spirit, and 
they are life. All Scripture is given by in- 
spiration of God, and is profitable for all the 
uses of Christian instruction and nurture. It 



42 THE BIBLE, 



is an inspired book, and it is an inspiring book. 
The Holy Spirit guided in the writing, and it 
guides in the reading of it. The letter is 
dead, but the Spirit quickeneth. It is the 
voice of the living God to living men. In- 
spiration gave it, inspiration interprets it, and 
applies it to the believing soul. To slight 
God's word is to slight its Author. The un- 
opened, dusty Bible tells the secret of many a 
barren life and joyless experience. The moroc- 
co-bound, gilt-edged volume, that lies as an or- 
nament on the center-table, or the velvet-bound 
smaller volume in the bed-chamber, are silent 
witnesses against their negligent owners. 

The writer spent a summer vacation in Bible- 
distribution in Georgia about thirty years ago. 
He found during that memorable tour Church- 
members who had Bibles which they never 
read; Church-members who said they wanted 
no Bibles; Church - members who could not 
read, and some who read, and prized the word 
of God beyond all price. One case made an 
indelible impression upon his mind. 



THE BIBLE. 43 



Toward sunset one afternoon be entered a 
rough log-house by the road-side, and was re- 
ceived by a tall, grave - looking woman, who 
asked him to be seated. After accepting a 
drink of sparkling cold water from a gourd, 
he made known his business. The grave face 
brightened with pleasure. 

"It's a good work you are doing, sir," she 
said, warmly. 

"Have you a Bible, madam? " 

" Yes, but the print is very fine, and gives 
me trouble. I am learning to read, and I am 
getting on right well." 

"How long have you been learning? " 

"It 's more than three years since I first be- 
gun. The school-children are a great help to 
me; they come in as they go home, and help 
me with the hard words. They are mighty 
kifrd to me, God bless 'em ! By and by I '11 be 
able to read the Bible for myself, and under- 
stand it." 

A look of grateful satisfaction beamed from 
the care-worn face as the words were spoken, 



44 THE BIBLE. 



and when a New Testament with large, clear 
print was placed in her hand, the look of joy 
touched the visitor's heart with a new feeling 
as he kneeled with her and prayed that the 
blessing of God might rest upon that lonely 
woman, and that his word might guide her to 
glory. 

O ye favored ones, children of the Church* 
blessed with education, leisure, and ample op- 
portunity, beware ! Your unread Bibles are a 
standing indictment against you. They are 
proofs of positive disrespect to your Heavenly 
Father, and of a guilty neglect of a means of 
grace. 

A few words are offered concerning the 
proper use of the Bible as a means of grace. 

Do not forget that it is a Divine book. Read 
it reverently. No truth of God can touch or 
bless the irreverent soul. We do not here 
enter into the question of the nature or degree 
of the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures. A 
Bible half -inspired, or inspired " in spots," is 
not under consideration. Such a Bible is not 



THE BIBLE. 45 



■worth defending against the assaults of ene- 
mies, and cannot be the lamp that lights the 
path to immortality. Our Bible is the book 
that gives us the thought of God in a form 
that satisfies his own wisdom and love. In it 
we hear his voice, and feel the throb of his 
heart. Read, expecting to find God in his 
word. 

Exercise your common sense in reading the 
Bible. It is a revelation, and therefore pre- 
sents what God w r ould have you to know. The 
mysteries that are in it do not pertain to the 
things you are to do and to enjoy. There is no 
mystery in its commands or its promises. The 
easiest, most natural interpretation is usually 
the right one. Many of its mysteries are of 
men's own making. Use any reliable helps 
that may be within reach; get the right trans- 
lation of every passage if possible; but use 
your ow r n common sense, and be only anxious 
to get the mind of God. 

Read the Bible systematically — that is to 
say, in regular course. A proof of its divin- 



46 THE BIBLE. 



ity is found in the continuity of its record 
and the harmony of its utterances, embracing 
such vast periods of time and variety of au- 
thors as media of communication. Head the 
book in its proper connections, and thus get 
the unity of its impression, the cumulative 
force of its historical, prophetic, didactic, and 
biographical evidence. Read it through, and 
then begin again. The oftener you do so, the 
more you will find to repay you for the time 
spent in every subsequent perusal. 

Read your Bible topically. When you are 
specially interested in any particular doctrine, 
fact, or phase of religious experience, then is 
the time to read what the word of God teaches 
concerning it. The mind, like the body, hun- 
gers for particular kinds of food at different 
times. The appetite indicates the needs of a 
healthy organism. The body wants acids at 
one time, alkalies at another. So the soul de- 
mands food convenient for it — its portion in 
due season. Every phase of mental action 
and spiritual experience is delineated in the 



THE BIBLE. 41 



Bible, from the morbid cynicism of the sated 
voluptuary to the rapturous joy of the conse- 
crated believer under the full afflatus of the 
Holy Spirit. There is a principle of spiritual 
selection by which the hungry soul finds in 
the Bible the aliment it needs. Like God's 
other book, Nature, it is responsive to all the 
moods of the mind. You have found this to 
be so. When your soul was all aglow in its 
search for some truth of which it had caught a 
glimpse, or when some precious truth was seen 
by you in a new light and in wider relations, 
your Bible seemed almost to be instinct with 
intelligent sympathy, and to open itself to the 
very places in which were the precious depos- 
its waiting to be gathered. The hungry soul, 
like the diviner's rod, is attracted to the veins 
in which is found the shining treasure. A 
Bible thus read and penciled becomes an il- 
luminated book, its texts flashing like brill- 
iants in the light of the Lord. 

Bead your Bible prayerfully. This means 
that you should pray before reading, while 



48 THE BIBLE. 



reading, and after reading. If you proposed 
to hold converse with a fellow-man of noblest 
character, high intellectual endowments, and 
exalted position, you would if possible take a 
little time to arrange your thoughts and com- 
pose your spirit. Tou approach God in his 
word. Tou must concentrate your thought, 
that you may catch the thought of God as it 
meets your eye on the printed page. Pray 
while you read. One of the most devout 
Christians we have ever known reads all the 
Bible on his knees once a year. The bodily 
attitude is not essential, but the prayerful atti- 
tude of the soul is indispensable. The true 
spirit of prayer insures the presence of the 
Divine Interpreter, and makes the word of the 
Lord bright with the light and warm with the 
love of Heaven. 



OTHER READING. 

c ' Of making many books there is no end. ' ' Eccles. 
xii. 12. 

r I "HE Christian growth of many is greatly 
*- hindered by what they read. One nail 
drives another out. The wholesome thought 
and holy aspiration enkindled by the reading 
of the word of God is dissipated by the license 
we allow ourselves in other directions. We 
must be as particular in the choice of books 
as in the choice of living companionship. A 
bad book poisons the soul just as truly as the 
talk of a bad man. A silly book lowers the 
mental tone just as truly as does the society of 
a silly person. The secret of many a crippled 
Christian life may be found in the library or 
in tho character of the periodical and news- 
4 (49) 



50 OTHER READING. 

paper literature that comes to the house. 
Alongside the Bible is the devil's books of 
doubt, error, and pollution. On the same shelf 
with the works of the sages and saints who 
have interpreted divine truth, and showed us 
how to live for God, are the specious sophis- 
tries of skeptics, the blatant blasphemies, the 
seductive rhetoric, and insinuated poison of 
the enemies, open and disguised, of Chris- 
tianity. But, you say, we must keep up with 
the times. No, you need not keep up with the 
times. If you attempt it, you will be led to 
destruction. You must not give way to a fatal 
curiosity. Thousands start to hell by that 
path. Many turn aside from the right way to 
gratify curiosity. It is good to be simple con- 
cerning evil. The very mention of the names 
of the idol-gods of the heathen was forbidden 
to the Israelites. It is best not to know many 
things. A wise self-denial and self-censorship 
is necessary in this matter of reading. To 
taste every poison compounded by modern 
pharmacy, in order to gratify curiosity, or to 



OTHER BEADING, 51 

judge of its quality, would be less foolish than 
the indiscriminate reading indulged in by- 
many who have begun the new life. Soul- 
health is of more importance than that of the 
body. What you read is of more consequence 
than what you eat or drink. Better tamper 
with all the poisons in the materia medica than 
allow your mind to be invaded by the deadly 
foes to religion that seek entrance in the shape 
of books, magazines, and newspapers. What 
rules should be observed in making- a discrim- 
inating choice of reading-matter ? 

Have nothing to do with bad books. There 
are many writers known to be vicious. Their 
names on the backs of books convey intima- 
tions of their character just as unmistakable 
as those of aconite or prussic acid on the 
bottles in a drug-store. Touch not, taste not, 
handle not. Do not buy such books. Do not 
give them shelter. Do not read them. Let 
the devil support his own literature. Harbor 
not nor parley with the avowed enemies of 
your Saviour. 



52 OTHER READING. 

Beware of books that are partly good and 
partly bad. Meat a little tainted is not fit to 
be eaten. So a book a little infected with 
error is not fit to be read. Throw it aside. 
To the healthy palate a taste is sufficient to 
determine the quality of tainted food; so it is 
not necessary to read a bad book through that 
you may know its character. The true be- 
liever is a discerner of spirits — even the spirit 
of a book betrays itself quickly to the well- 
instructed soul. The glitter of the serpent's 
skin does not conceal its forked tongue and 
deadly fangs. The virus of one fascinating 
book in which, mixed with much that is harm- 
less and good, is an infusion of evil suggestion, 
has shadowed and crippled a whole life. Ban- 
ish the whole brood of such books. Will some 
one call this illiberality ? Be it so: you are 
not required to be liberal at the peril of your 
soul. You are not required to admit into its 
citadel an enemy that will betray you to death, 
though he may smile and profess friendship. 
In tjje pathway of Christian growth such books 



OTHER READING. 53 

are a fatal obstruction. In the strength of the 
Lord put away the evil thing. It will require 
self-denial in some to do this, but it will repay 
them richly for its exercise. Be self-denying 
if necessary, and you will reach a point where 
self-denial will not be needed; for the soul, 
fortified in wholesome Christian tastes and 
habits, will turn instinctively and instantly 
from error and impurity, come in what shape 
they may. 

Do not read at random. This is one of the 
greatest evils of our times. By this leak many 
a ship has been sunk. Be on your guard 
here, or you will be ensnared. The land is 
flooded with sensational, trashy reading. If you 
allow it, it will be thrust upon you continually. 
The devices by wdiich this worthless and worse 
than worthless literature is foisted upon the 
public are ingenious and innumerable. It 
finds its way into Christian families, into rail- 
way cars, everywhere, even the bed-chambers 
of maiden innocence. Meager indeed must 
be the mental resources of a Christian who 



54 OTHER BEADING. 

cannot find in his own thoughts better enter- 
tainment than is furnished by such reading. 
The mental dyspepsia that creates an unap- 
peasable morbid appetite for this sort of read- 
ing is a stumbling-block to many after they 
have entered upon the Christian life. Take a 
stand here, and maintain it. As you would 
keep your thought pure, and exclude from 
your heart, which is the temple of the Holy 
Spirit, all that is inimical to its presence, give 
no place to this enemy to Christian health and 
growth. Do not be led into the evil by curi- 
osity. It is not worth while to roll in a mud- 
hole to see how mud feels. Do not be en- 
trapped by carelessness. The treasure you 
guard is worth more than whole earthly king- 
doms. It is your soul that is in your own 
keeping under God. 

Any reading that lessens your relish for the 
Bible and for prayer is bad reading for you. 
Apply this test in all cases. 

Conversely, the reading that whets your ap- 
petite for the word of God, and disposes you to 



OTHER READING. 



55 



prayerfulness, is good reading, and will pro- 
mote your growth in the Christian life. 

Each Christian must determine for himself 
to what extent he may read for recreation 
merely and for mental culture. There need 
be no trouble about this where common sense 
and a healthy Christian conscience are con- 
joined. Christian growth must be regarded 
as the great end of life, and all things should 
be accepted or rejected, as they help or hin- 
der it. 




MEDITATION. 

"My meditation of him shall be sweet." Ps. civ. 34. 

IV IT EDITATION is not what many seem to 
±■1-*- think it is. It is not a vagne and 
dreamy contemplation of religions subjects. 
It is not dwelling on sacred abstractions, the 
mind floating at random in the hazy realm of 
reverie. Divine truth as revealed in the Bible 
is the proper subject for meditation. After 
the reading of the word then comes meditation 
on it. When David said that he meditated in 
the law of God day and night, he meant that 
its truths like a golden thread ran through all 
his thoughts. 

Never dismiss a truth from the mind as 
long as it feeds the soul. It is wonderful how 
deep a channel the mind will cut when it runs 
(56) 



MEDITATION. 57 



in one direction for even a single week. A 
Bible truth thus held in the thought is like a 
diamond flashing new splendors as the light 
strikes it at different angles. 

Meditation means deep thought, and all 
deep thought is patient thought. The mind 
has its own laws, and we must wait upon their 
action. Thought crystallizes by its own proper 
law, and the process cannot be hurried. If 
hurried, it is marred. It were better to read 
but a single verse of the Bible in a week, and 
then take another week for meditation upon it, 
than to read as many do. They crowd the 
mind with a mass of undigested matter, hur- 
rying from one thing to another without 
method, coherence, or profit. Truth must be 
thought over in the mind, digested and assim- 
ilated, else it is not in reality ours. 

Nothing can properly take the place of your 
own meditations. The very abundance of 
reading-matter may become a snare to you. 
It is one of the evils of cheap printing that 
with many it lessens the amount of thinking 



58 MEDITATION. 



in proportion as it increases the amount of 
reading done by them. It was after he had 
himself meditated on God's word long and 
patiently that David exclaimed in devout rapt- 
ure, God, thy thoughts are very deep! He 
f ound— as yon will find if yon meditate thus on 
passages of the Bible that attract and move 
you — that they grow on you wonderfully. You 
will be delighted to find how every truth of 
God has affinity for every other truth of God. 
The one text is like a stream that flows on and 
an, taking in one tributary after another until 
it becomes a mighty river rolling oceanward. 
Preachers who are real students of divine 
truth are struck with wonder to find how, when 
God has blessed a text to their own souls, and 
they have often recurred to it and followed up 
its suggestions, it has seemed to be inex- 
haustible, its glorious sweep taking in the 
w T hole heaven of revelation. The greatest ser- 
mons of the greatest preachers were thus 
evolved. A text and its exposition w T ill grow 
for a life-time. 






MEDITATION. 59 



It is not the Christian who has read through 
the Bible oftenest, but the one who has medi- 
tated upon it most deeply, who is richest in 
the knowledge of heavenly truth. The plain, 
godly men and women of a former generation, 
who read little else besides their Bibles, and 
took time to meditate on what they read, would 
put many of their more " cultured " and pre- 
tentious descendants to shame. They were 
able and ready to give a reason for the hope 
that was within them, for they had come into 
the Christian life by the strait gate, and had 
thought out for themselves the great truths of 
the Bible. Their syntax in many cases might 
be faulty, but their thought was strong and 
clear. The bread of life, thus digested and 
assimilated, nourished their souls, and they 
were mighty in the Scriptures, strong in faith, 
and rooted and grounded in love. 

You say you have no time or opportunity 
for meditation. Let us consider this a mo- 
ment. It is not necessary that you should 
live a secluded life. This is impossible to 



60 MEDITATION. 

many. Their lives are busy ones, and they 
are forced into contact with the great noisy 
world in which they live. They are forced to 
think about business matters, and, to succeed 
in this age and country, they must be diligent. 
But this need not preclude meditation on re- 
ligious truth. Diligent in business, fervent in 
spirit, serving the Lord — this is the apostolic 
formula for a busy Christian. The fervor and 
the diligence may go together. But to retain 
religious fervor amid the hurry of modern bus- 
iness-life, to have meditation upon diviner 
things run through the clamors of the world 
like a sweet under-song, requires one thing 
which many will not give : it requires a res- 
olute and vigorous effort of the will to prevent 
the thought from wandering at random at 
detached moments. Idle thoughts, like idle 
words, are to be avoided. Left to itself, the 
mind trails like a neglected creeper on the 
ground; directed by the will, it climbs God- 
ward on the lofty pillars of truth. The lover 
dwells on the image of his betrothed in the 



MEDITA TWN. Gl 



midst of crowds and when pressed with labors. 
So the believer, wedded to heavenly truth, 
carries its image in his heart always, and his 
thought reverts to it as naturally as the needle 
turns to the magnet. His life is hid w T ith 
Christ in God, and that hidden life brings the 
harmonies of heaven into his soul when the 
discords of earth are loudest. 

But it is well to be alone at times if possi- 
ble. Nothing in the sufferings of. the Apostle 
Paul has seemed so terrible as the fact that 
during three long years he was chained night 
and day to a brutal Roman soldier. There is 
a pathos in this episode in the apostle's life 
too deep for words. There are times when 
you yearn for solitude. You want to recollect 
yourself, collect your scattered individuality, 
recover your half -lost identity, separate your- 
self from the mass, and realize that you are 
something distinct from the vast whirling uni- 
verse around you. Obey that healthy instinct. 
Go out into the country. Climb a hill where 
you will have' the capacious heavens above 



62 MEDITATION. 



you and the freedom and amplitude of Nature 
all around you, where you hear no voices but 
Nature's and God's. Plunge deep into the 
forest, and let your thoughts mingle with the 
solemn music of the forest-hymn breathed by 
the winds among the tree-tops. Or, if you 
can, go and stand on the sea-shore, and look 
out upon the vast expanse, the emblem of in- 
finity, and meditate on the Infinite God, whose 
footsteps are on the great waters, and whose 
paths are in the seas. 

The turf shall be my fragrant shrine ; 
My temple, Lord, that arch of thine ; 
My censer's breath the mountain airs, 
And silent thoughts my only prayers. 

My choir shall be the moonlight waves 
When murmuring homeward to their caves, 
Or when the silence of the sea 
E'en more than music speaks of Thee. 

God's word and works will speak to the soul 
at the same time. You will get new revela- 
tions of the truth, and the two books — Nature 
and Revelation — flash new light back and 



MEDITATION. 



63 



forth, each upon the other. It is good for 
man to be alone with God at times under these 
conditions favorable to the opening of the 
spiritual ear that has been stunned and dulled 
by the din of the world. 

Meditation is to reading what the harrow- 
ing in is to the sowing of the seed. Let your 
reading be followed by devout meditation. 




PRAYER. 

" Continue in prayer, and watch in the same. 11 

COLOSSIANS iv. 2. 

r I A HE basis of prayer is the promise of God. 
-*- The philosophy of prayer is another 
thing. We are not troubled about the philos- 
ophy — it is the experience that concerns us 
now. The philosophy of many things in com- 
mon life is not understood by multitudes who 
live in right relation to them, and thus obtain 
the benefits they are intended to confer. The 
promise of God is philosophy enough. Ask, 
and ye shall receive. We ask, and God gives. 
If we ask any thing according to his will, it 
shall be done for us. According to his will- 
that is to say, according to his word. His 
word tells us in what spirit we must pray, and 
(64) 



PRAYER. 65 



what are proper subjects for prayer. The 
Lord's Prayer is a general model as to the 
manner. God's glory is to be sought, his will 
is to be submitted to, his providence is to be 
recognized, his grace implored, his protection 
sought. "When it is said by the apostle, "We 
know not what ire should pray for as we ought, 
but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us 
with groa)iings which cannot be uttered" his 
meaning may be this: That between the 
things that are explicitly revealed as proper 
subjects for prayer on the one hand, and the 
secret things that belong to God on the other, 
there is a sort of middle ground. Without 
an explicit warrant to pray, with a direct 
promise of an answer, there is such a connec- 
tion between the heart of the suppliant and 
the subject of his prayers, and the Holy Spirit 
moves so powerfully upon the praying soul, 
that it is drawn out with extraordinary ear- 
nestness and faith in its approaches to the 
throne of grace. We have known many devout 
men and women who have had this experi- 



G6 PRAYER. 






ence in intercessory prayer. They have had a 
"liberty" at times in praying for others that 
seemed to be (and who will say it was not?) 
the special leading of the Holy Spirit. There 
might be danger here to a person of fanatical 
tendency. The word is the final arbiter in 
all such questions. By it try the spirits wheth- 
er they be of God. Humility is in no danger 
in this matter. A diseased egotism is usually 
the cause of fanaticism. The folly of the fa- 
natic is that of the fool who exaggerates his 
personal importance and relations to sacred 
things. He claims that he hears voices that 
tell him strange things. He says the Holy 
Spirit tells him to do this or that absurd thing 
— an inordinate vanity, mixed with vague relig- 
ious sentimentality, taking the place of the hu- 
mility that listens to the voice of God, and the 
clear perception of cardinal Christian truths 
that hold the mind within the limits of what is 
revealed. There is a blessing here that may 
be grasped by humility and faith. There is 
a danger here that may ensnare fanaticism. 



PRAYER. 07 



The true possessor of the secret of the Lord 
will walk here with uncovered head and un- 
sandaled feet, for the ground is holy. The 
fool will rush in where an angel might fear to 
tread. Lord, teach us how to pray! 

Leaving this point with the judicious reader, 
we proceed to consider other aspects of prayer 
as a means of promoting growth in the Chris- 
tian life. 

You should have regular habits of prayer. 
There is more in this matter of habit than 
many persons think. The law of periodicity 
pervades the world of mind as well as that of 
matter. It applies to the religious as well as 
to the physical sphere; to the activities of the 
soul as well as the movements of the body. 
Daniel's habit of praying three times a day 
had much to do with the maintenance of his 
faith and hope in the midst of antagonizing 
and depressing influences. It prevented any 
backward movement of his soul, keeping him 
braced up against reactionary tendencies. The 
habit of doing a thing makes it both easy and 



68 PRAYER. 



pleasant. A story is told of a State's-prison 
convict who, being a hard case, was forced to 
work a tread-mill in order to tame him. At 
first he was enraged and profane, but at 
length, from force of habit, he came to like 
the exercise, and declared if he lived to get 
out of prison he would have a tread-mill of 
his own. This is an extreme case, but it illus- 
trates the power of habit. God put this law 
of habit into our natures that it might bless 
our lives. The praying habit is the very main- 
spring of the Christian life. It regulates its 
whole movement. 

Habit means regularity, not hap-hazard. 
You should have stated times for prayer. 
Each one must determine for himself how 
often he ought to pray daily. There is no 
absolute rule prescribed. To have done this 
would have been destructive of the freedom 
and spontaneity of the new life. There is no 
technical limit to praying or giving in the 
New Testament. As in the Old Testament 
one-tenth seems to have been the minimum of 



PRAYER. 69 



giving for religion, so three times a day seems 
to be the minimum for praying. When we 
fall below Old Testament practice in either 
our gifts or our prayers, we will do well to 
pause and consider. The holiest and most 
fruitful Christian lives have been lived by 
men and women who thus prayed not less than 
three times a day. The universal adoption of 
such a habit would fill millions of hearts with 
new life, and bring a baptism of power upon 
the Church that would shake the world. The 
adoption by you of such a habit would lift you 
at once to a higher plane — endue you with 
such spiritual power as you never possessed 
before, and clothe your spirit with the beauty 
of holiness to a degree beyond your present 
conception. 

You can pray anywhere if you are in the 
spirit of prayer. You can (blessed truth!) 
hold audience with God at your own option. 
The place is not essential to the efficacy of 
prayer. Yet there is something in the law of 
association. Daniel knelt daily in the same 



70 PRAYER. 



chamber consecrated to devotion. There was 
a help in this. The hallowed associations of 
that room reacted upon the man of God when 
he came in from the excitement of the court, 
shut the door, and, kneeling, prayed to his 
God. His window opened toward Jerusalem 
not accidentally, but by special arrangement. 
As his eye swept over the western hills until 
vision was lost in the distance, his imagina- 
tion swept onward until he stood in the courts 
of the Lord's house on Zion's hill, heard its 
holy songs, and inhaled the incense that rose 
frpm its sacred altars. The law of association 
is the friend of religion, if we will have it so. 
The old Bible that we have read and reread 
in joy and in sorrow — pencil-marked and tear- 
blotted — somehow speaks to us in a deeper 
and tenderer tone, for its pages are like a pho- 
nograph, holding still the voices of the past. 
The leaves are turned for us by hands that 
have struck the harps of God in heaven, and 
the blessed words have to us special meanings 
that have been put into them by experiences 



PRAYER. 71 



that identify themselves in memory with the 
very form of the pages and the shapes of the 
letters of the sacred volume. Enter into thy 
closet — if thou hast one. That is the best 
place. There you avoid the sights and sounds 
that divert the thought from sacred things and 
untune the soul for the touches of the Holy 
Spirit. God will hear a true prayer anywhere, 
whether it be from a shipwrecked sailor drift- 
ing on a plank in the storm on a midnight sea, 
or a wanderer dying of thirst on the desert- 
sands, or a malefactor under the gibbet. But 
we are not independent of the influence of 
mental associations. When Jesus said that 
neither at Mount Gerizim nor at Jerusalem 
was it necessary to worship God, but that wor- 
ship must be in spirit and in truth, he did not 
intend to condemn or discourage the setting 
apart of particular places for devotion. He 
was found on the Sabbath in the synagogues, 
and on the mountain alone at night in solitary 
prayer. The quiet of the cottage at Bethany 
was dear to him. Was there a "prophet's 



72 PEA YER 



chamber" in that sweet little home, hallowed 
by his occupancy, where, out of hearing of the 
roar of the teeming city, he communed with 
his Father in prayer? Ten minutes spent 
alone with God in the middle of the day will 
sweeten all the intervening hours until the 
evening prayer is offered, and you lie down and 
sleep, because it is he that maketh you to 
dwell in safety. It is good to have not only 
stated times, but also stated places, for prayer. 
The instinct of the soul-hungry calls for this, 
and the difficulties in the way will, in most 
cases, be surmounted by the ingenuity inspired 
by strong desire. Whoso has once been hid- 
den in the pavilion of God, and knelt in the 
awe and ecstasy of prevailing prayer, will re- 
member the spot forever. 

You should concentrate in prayer. Do not 
pray for every thing in general and nothing in 
particular. There are many things desirable 
at all times — many things that are proper sub- 
jects of petition to the throne of grace; but 
they are not, therefore, necessarily to be made 



PRAYER. 73 



a part of every prayer that you offer in public 
or in private devotion. When a prayer takes 
in a great number of things, it is often a sign 
of languid devotion. When there is in reality 
that deep sense of need which inspires a true 
prayer, the one thing needed is urged with 
intense earnestness and directness. A child 
comes home from school, or from play, and 
says, "Mother, I am hungry — give me some 
bread and meat, and some pie, and some 
pickle, some cake and some preserves, some 
candy and some nuts, some fruit and some 
custard/' The mother will smile, and say, 
" Go, my child, and play — you are not hungry." 
But let the child come into the house with a 
rapid step, and say, "Mother, I am very hun- 
gry indeed — give me some bread and butter, 
and give it to me right now " — then the mother 
knows that the child really wants what it asks 
for, and its prayer is granted. 

In the more joyful seasons of the Christian 
life the prayer of a true believer will at times 
take the form of thanksgiving. If it be the 



74 PRAYER. 



genuine expression of a heart overflowing with 
gratitude to God, the thanksgiving will be 
rendered not in the vague and general way 
that obtains when the heart is cold, but it 
will glow and melt in view of special mercies 
and direct manifestations of the divine good- 
ness. It was enough for the publican to say, 
"God be merciful to me a sinner." It was enough 
for Peter to say, when sinking in the sea, 
"Save, Lord, I perish" When Paul sought the 
removal of the thorn in his flesh, he prayed 
the same prayer thrice, prayed till he got an 
answer — not the answer he wished, yet a true 
and gracious answer. This is waiting upon 
the Lord. This is knocking and still knocking 
until the door is opened. 

The length of a prayer is of no consequence. 
It is not always the longest prayer that is the 
most successful. The prayer that prevails is 
of the right length, whether it be -as short as 
that of the thief on the cross, or as long as 
that of Jacob at Jabbok. 

Do not be greatly distressed if at times, in 



PRAYER. 75 



spite of all your efforts, there may be dullness 
and wandering of thought in your prayers. 
The body clogs the movement of the mind. 
Not always, but sometimes, it so happens that 
a state of bodily depression is attended with 
great spiritual exaltation, as if the frail house 
of clay could scarcely hold the rejoicing soul. 
The Apostle Paul gloried in his infirmities, 
that the power of Christ might rest upon 
him. The physical feebleness or suffering 
that you think a chief impediment in your 
way, may be the very channel through which 
the Lord pours the richest blessings of his 
grace into your receptive and obedient heart. 
But oftener it is found that the intimate sym- 
pathy between the soul and body causes the 
one to react on the other; and this will be so 
until the redeemed and glorified body shall, 
after the general resurrection, be reunited to 
the redeemed and glorified soul, and become 
its fit vehicle and agent for the higher expe- 
riences and sublime achievements that await 
it in the world of spirits. Earnestness of pur- 



76 PRAYER. 



pose, and sincerity of motive in approaching 
God, will do much to make our prayers preva- 
lent even under the most adverse conditions. 

But the thought will wander sometimes, and 
the tendency must be combated. A modest, 
saintly, and very successful minister of the 
Tennessee Conference has found great help in 
preventing wandering thoughts in his private 
devotions by praying aloud. This is worth 
considering. There is a law of the mind by 
which a thought expressed in words becomes 
more distinctly defined to our consciousness. 
The momentum of articulated speech, so to 
speak, gives it a more direct and vigorous 
movement in a particular channel. God acts 
with and through the laws which he has put 
into the human mind, not independently of 
them or contrary to them. In praying to him, 
you may most properly use all possible expe- 
dients to put your soul into the best attitude 
toward him, and to order your cause aright. 
No obstacles can prevent his answering the 
prayer of faith, but he would have you employ 



PR A TEE. 



77 



all available helps to dispose your heart to 
receive the grace he is always willing to give. 
There is a wisdom of holy habit that may be 
cultivated, and Avhich will facilitate the ac- 
cess of the soul to God in prayer. Lord, 
teach us how to pray! 





^HK II 


^^^^JwW^^ 



ASSOCIATIONS. 

" We took sweet counsel together." Psalm lv. 14. 

/ nr > HE daily duties and conventionalities of 
■*■ our lives give compulsory direction to 
much of our association. This cannot be 
helped, nor should we wish to help it. We 
must go into the battle of life as we find it, 
and fight the good fight manfully. The attri- 
tion of this worldly contact must not only be 
met and counteracted, but made to contribute 
to the development of qualities that round out 
the character in the elements of strength, self- 
poise, alertness, and executive energy — all of 
them qualities of great worth in a world like 
this. The Heavenly Father will see to it that 
none of us shall lose any thing by the circum- 
stances surrounding us in the discharge of the 
(78) 



ASSOCIATIONS. 79 



duties that devolve upon us in the relations we 
hold to society. But there is a large part of 
our association that is a matter of choice. The 
choice of a companion for a leisure hour, like 
the choice of a book, is a sure revealer of mor- 
al affinity. Do you prefer the society of the 
gay and the frivolous to that of the prayerful 
and the holy? Do you prefer brilliancy with 
irreligion to the Lord's humble ones whose at- 
traction is the beauty of holiness ? Like seeks 
like. No social tie is so strong as that which 
binds Christian hearts together as fellow-dis- 
ciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christian 
friendship is a distinct relation unlike any 
other. It has in it elements of sacredness, 
depth, and perpetuity, found nowhere else on 
earth. This relationship should be asserted 
at all times in the intercourse of Christians. 
There are no peculiar pass-words or grips by 
which they recognize one another, but the 
love of God that burns in the heart of every 
true believer is felt by every other believer 
when brought in contact with it. It overleaps 



80 ASSOCIATIONS. 



inequalities in education and fortune, and binds 
the whole vast body of Christ's followers to- 
gether as members one of another. "We know 
that we have passed from death unto life because 
we love the brethren." How do you stand accord- 
ing to this test? Mind you, the brethren must 
be loved as brethren. The attraction is the 
attraction of spirituality, the attraction of 
Christ's image seen and loved in his disciples. 
Thus drawn toward one another, they that fear 
the Lord speak often one to another. Their 
minds are occupied with the same thoughts, 
their hearts glow with the same holy affections 
and hopes. The pressure from without leads 
them to draw nearer to each other in the sacred 
fellowship of Christian love. They talk about 
what is dearest to them of all things. They 
find a sweet enjoyment that never cloys in the 
discussion of the exalted truths of religion. 
They find in these truths ever-new suggestions, 
and ever-widening sweeps of thought. The 
subjects of religious thought and converse are 
as high as heaven, as vast as eternity, as glori- 



ASSOCIATIONS. 81 



ous as God, They interlink themselves with 
every blessed hope and lofty aspiration of the 
soul. These subjects are inexhaustible, a feast 
of intellectual and spiritual riches that em- 
braces time and eternity, earth and heaven. 
The vanities of the world tire at last even the 
veriest worldlings. But it is the glory of re- 
ligious truth that it never loses its relish to the 
renewed soul. It is as fresh as the manna 
gathered by the hungry Israelites each morn- 
ing on their march to Canaan. It is new for- 
ever. There is no need for a follower of Christ 
to go on the devil's ground for topics of con- 
versation, nor to eke out weary hours of inanity 
by joining in the gabbling and giggling that 
pass for conversation in the gay circles of the 
world. 

It is not enough that we improve such oppor- 
tunities as may incidentally present themselves 
to us for religious conversation. We should do 
as the early Christians did — meet together for 
that special purpose. 'There is a charm in a lit- 
erary club where cultured men and women of 
6 



82 ASSOCIATIONS. 



congenial tastes meet to interchange thought 
and stimulate one another in the pursuit of lit- 
erature, science, or art. The charm of a relig- 
ious gathering is as much greater as its topics 
are higher, and its acquisitions more valuable 
and enduring. In such a circle of Christian 
friends the religious experience and culture of 
each become the property of all. The molding, 
modifying, enlarging influence of many-sided 
views of divine truth and methods of expression 
is potent in smoothing off undue angularity, 
repressing morbid tendencies of thought and 
feeling, and preventing narrowness and one^ 
sidedness. The highest type of Christian 
character to be found in such a circle is that to 
which all wall tend, for there is an upward look 
and movement in all true souls. There is 
nothing on this earth more typical of the holy 
and blessed society of heaven than this. And 
there is no better preparation than this for the 
holy companionships and ineffable joys of the 
city of God. What should be said of the folly 
of those who find enjoyment only in the inani- 



ASSOCIATIOXS. 83 



ties of worldlings, and yet are looking to spend 
eternity with the family of God, where angels 
veil their faces in the Infinite Presence, and 
cry, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; heaven 
and earth are full of his glory"? 

It has already been suggested that thought 
is clarified by giving it expression in words. 
The highest, most precious truths of religion 
formulated in right words are thenceforth seen 
in a clearer light, held more firmly in the 
mind, and felt more deeply in the heart. A 
distinguished lawyer, whose reputation is wider 
than the State in which he lives, declared that 
he had learned more theology in its practical 
bearings from a class-meeting in ten months 
than he had learned from all other sources in 
ten years. It was not only what he heard from 
others, but what he heard himself say , that thus 
enlarged the area and increased the clearness 
of his religious thought. In making every 
convert a witness as well as a recipient of grace, 
our Lord had in view not only the conversion 
of the unsaved, but also the growth of converts 



84 



ASSOCIATIONS. 



in grace and knowledge of divine truth. The 
witnessing Church is the Church that is edified. 
The witnessing believer is the one who grows. 
Like a fountain, the mind sends forth a fuller 
stream when its channel is cleared by the free 
expression of thought. 

Religious conversation is a means of grace 
of inestimable value subjectively, while it is a 
fruitful agency in doing good. By it we help 
to make the heaven we shall enjoy. 




TALK. 

"If any man offend not in word, the same is a 
perfect many, James iii. 2. 

/ T^HE talk of a life-time is the life itself. 
-*- Let me know what you say, and I will 
tell yon what yon are. Out of the fullness of 
the heart the mouth speaketh. The true char- 
acter will betray itself in the speech. All the 
words spoken by you will be a photograph of 
your moral nature. By your words you shall 
be judged. It is chiefly by the power of 
spoken words that it pleases God to save 
men. The foolishness of preaching is the ap- 
pointed means. We have the written word. 
Its leaves are scattered for the healing of the 
nations. But that is not enough. There is 
something that cannot be printed on paper. 

(85) 



86 TALK 

The living brain, the magnetism of a heart on 
fire with the love of God, the kindling glance 
of the eye, the tones of the voice modulated 
by the varying emotions of the speaker — these 
cannot be put on paper. The subtle sympa- 
thies between soul and soul make the channel 
for the inflowing grace of God. This gift of 
speech is that which distinguishes man from 
the brute creation, and marks the great chasm 
between the two orders of creatures. It is a 
high endowment. By it one brain can touch 
another at will, and the mental and moral 
riches of one soul become the possession of 
many. It is a treasure the use of which does 
not diminish its quantity. You give away a 
dollar, and it is no longer yours; but give a 
thought, and it is still yours; yea, it is more 
yours than before, for a thought is never 
fully possessed by us until it has been ex- 
pressed. This is a wonderful fact. You must 
scatter your thought if you would increase it. 
The hoarded coin will rust. The water that 
ceases to flow will become foul. The relation 



TALK. 87 

of Christian experience is a means of conserv- 
ing our own religious prosperity no less than 
it is a means of helping others. The reflex 
influence of our words makes every word a 
factor in the formation of character. The 
fruit of our lips is life or death. Like the 
rudder of a ship, the tongue guides the whole 
movement of the soul. In a word, make the 
words of your life right, and the life will be 
right. The lips must be consecrated. "If a 
man offend not in word, that man is perfect" 
That is to say, there is no mode of visible ex- 
pression of the fidelity, beauty, and power of a 
true Christian life so conclusive as the right 
use of this wonderful faculty of speech. Si- 
lence is golden only under exceptional condi- 
tions when speech is useless- How t forcible 
are right words ! They are like apples of gold 
in pictures of silver. 

Remember that you must give account of 
your words to God — not only for evil words 
in the positive sense, but for idle words. That 
is to say, we must not speak carelessly. Our 



88 TALK. 

lips belong to God. They are the exponents 
of what is in the heart. They are the index 
to the world of what God can do in the way of 
filling the soul with holy thought and feeling. 
Foolish speech caricatures your religion, dis- 
honors your Lord. Evil speech libels Him 
who can make the words of your mouth and 
the meditation of your heart acceptable in the 
sight of God. 

Cultivate self-command in this matter. The 
exercise of the will in repressing hasty or im- 
proper speech tends to the suppression of the 
evil temper itself. Give way to anger, and it 
increases. Impure thought cuts a still deeper 
channel in the soul when you give it utterance. 
So powerful is this law of the mind that it is a 
well-known fact that the mechanical repeti- 
tion of the words expressive of any particular 
emotion will generate responsive emotion in 
the speaker's own soul. It was said derisively 
of a certain minister that the reason why he 
w^ept when nobody else did while he was 
preaching, was that "the sound of his own 



TALK. 89 

voice was affecting to him." It is so with all 
speakers. There is a perfect correspondence 
between all the faculties of the soul and all 
the bodily senses. This is an arrangement by 
which God makes all things tributary to the 
harmonious development of the moral nature 
of man. Speech reacts .upon the sentiments 
within as those sentiments react on the speech. 
This was the thought in the mind of the prac- 
tical Apostle James when he said, "If any man 
offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and 
able also to bridle the whole body" Think of 
this a little. The self-control that will bridle 
your tongue will suffice to curb every lust of the 
whole body. Gain this victory, and you sweep 
the field in triumph. The devil makes his 
last rally here. It is a sad fact that there are 
thousands whose unruly tongues neutralize 
nearly all their good influence as Christians. 
They do not lie, nor steal, nor swear; they are 
not unclean nor covetous; but they have un- 
sanctified lips; they are hasty, imprudent, in- 
temperate in speech. They allow every gust 



90 TALK. 

of passion, every foolish fancy, every peevish 
temper, to have free course — thus discounting 
their religious profession in the eyes of all 
who come in contact with them, dissipating 
the aroma of a sweet Christian atmosphere, 
and retarding the growth of the soul in the 
graces that liken it to Christ, and fit it to be 
the abode of the Holy Spirit. This is the 
dark blot upon many a life. Thoughtlessness 
is often the cause. Imitative of evil example, 
many adopt wrong habits of speech without 
thinking, and go on in the bad way without 
stopping to consider. A Christian cannot af- 
ford to be thoughtless and careless about his 
speech. Malaria is none the less deadly be- 
cause you inhale it without thought. The 
whole tone of your life may be lowered by 
this fault. It is a loose rivet that cripples its 
whole machinery. 

Consecrated lips give you the advantage of 
an aggressive defense against the irruption of 
worldliness and frivolity. A positive religious 
tone in your talk shuts out that of a contrary 



TALK. 91 

character. It is easier to start in the right 
channel than it is to get into it after you are 
launched upon the stream of conversation. 
Once committed even passively to the " fool- 
ish talking and jesting," aimless and godless, 
which is so common, and you are swept on 
with its tide. If you try to extricate yourself, 
you find it to be difficult or impossible. Si- 
lence is often awkward. Thus you are made 
a participant, in some measure, in that which 
is a folly and a sin. 

It is not necessary to do the least violence 
to good taste or good manners in order to 
make your conversation religious, or at least 
preserve it from being harmful, in all compa- 
nies. The conversation of every deeply ear- 
nest person is tinctured by his prevailing pas- 
sion, whatever it may be. This is what is 
meant when we are told to let our conversation 
be seasoned with the salt of grace. It is not 
to force handfuls of salt down reluctant 
throats. Some attempt this, and do harm. 
They cast pearls before swine, who turn and 



92 TALK. 

rend tliem. They lack the wisdom that wins 
souls. When a Christian discards common 
sense he need not expect the Lord to nullify 
the effects of the folly that he might avoid. 
The grace that gives the right feeling will go 
far to suggest the right thought. The wisdom 
that cometh from above is given liberally to 
all who ask with a sincere desire to be guided 
in the right way. The lips and the lives of all 
willing souls are directed by the Holy Spirit. 
Consecrated lips are the convincing expres- 
sion of a true Christian faith, the finishing 
touch in the development of Christian charac- 
ter. We have the authority of God for this. 
The lips that have been consecrated to the 
Lord on earth will be ready to join in the new 
song in heaven. Gracious Lord, hallow our 
lips by the touch of the live coal from thine 
altar ! Amen. 






GIVING. 

"God loveth a cheerful giver." 2 Corinthians 
ix 7. 

T F yon do not know that giving is a means 
*■ of grace, yon have a secret yet to learn. 
If this grace be lacking in yon, whatever else 
may be found in the way of orthodox belief 
and forms of devotion, yon are yet lacking in 
one element of the Christian life. Ton cannot 
live Christ's life without giving. He gave all 
■ — he gave himself. The very essence of his 
religion is a love that stints not in its service 
or its gifts. 

If yon are a true believer, you are a worker 
together with Christ. You think his thoughts, 
you feel as he feels, you are working for the 
results that he is working for. The salvation 

(93) 



94 GIVING. 



of souls by the spread of the gospel is dearer 
to him than any thing else. If you have his 
spirit, this object is as dear to you as it is to 
him. 

From the first God has trained his people to 
give. From Abel to Abraham, from Abraham 
to Paul, and from Paul to this hour, giving has 
been made a duty and a means of grace to 
all believers. Strike out of the New Testa- 
ment what is said about giving, and how much 
of its tenderness and glow will be lost! Leave 
out what Jesus said and did to enforce and 
illustrate giving, and how much of beauty and 
sweetness are gone from the sacred record! 
Leave it out of the history of the early Church, 
and we lose the finest tints of the picture that 
has ravished the heart of the world. Strip it 
of the principle and practice of giving, and 
Christianity, shorn of its divinest function, 
walks the earth with frozen heart and empty 
hands. The Church that loses this grace be- 
comes a mere lumber-room for dead dogmas, 
a mark for the taunts of a humanity that scorns 



GIVING, 95 



a faith that professes to be of God, and yet 
fails in the exercise of the goodness and mercy 
that are the only credentials that will be rec- 
ognized by him on earth or in heaven. 

Obedience to God and imitation of Christ 
are the all-sufficient motive and ground of ob- 
ligation to give. 

The measure of giving is not left doubtful. 
One-tenth w T as the minimum under the Mosaic 
institute. You cannot fall below that. You 
will not wish to do so if you have the spirit 
of Christ. But love will not be limited by a 
technical rule, Its only measure is ability and 
opportunity. 

The New Testament rule of giving is given 
by the Apostle Paul: "Upon the first day of 
the week let every one of you lay by him in store as 
God hath prospered him." This was a specific 
direction for a particular exigency, but it in- 
volves the principles that apply to all giving 
as a Christian duty and means of grace. We 
must read a little between the lines. "As God 
hath prospered him " — it is no straining of the 



96 GIVING. 



text to say that this means prosperity of soul 
as well as of purse. No man will give accord- 
ing to his gains in money unless he has made 
equal gains in spiritual riches. The liberal 
heart is oftener wanting than the requisite 
ability. If there were a greater number of 
liberal souls, would there not be a larger num- 
ber of well-filled purses among Christians? 
The silver, and the gold, and the cattle upon a 
thousand- hills, are the Lord's. He will turn 
the wealth of the world into the hands of faith- 
ful men and women whenever he can find them 
in his Church. 

God leaves you to assess yourself, because 
he loveth a cheerful giver. He will not coerce 
your love, nor limit its expression. Cheerful 
giving is like his own. He gives freely. His 
love is a fountain that is full and free, and 
flows forever. Do you find a real pleasure in 
giving? That is to say, are you a cheerful 
giver? 

These latter days are made glorious by 
many examples of Christ-like liberality. The 



GIVING. 97 



rich give grandly of their abundance. But 
the blessedness of giving is not confined to the 
rich. A dollar is as acceptable to God as a 
million if it be in the one case as in the other 
the measure of ability. The widow who cast 
into the treasury her one mite leads a long 
procession of elect souls poor in this world's 
goods, but rich in faith, who have honored 
their Lord and blessed the ages by doing what 
they could. No brighter crowns will be worn 
in heaven than will be given to these little 
ones who gave not as they wished, but as they 
were able. The fullest measure of reward for 
liberality may be realized by every believer 
who has a willing heart. The whole philos- 
ophy of this question is conveyed by the 
words of Jesus: "Whosoever shall give to drink 
lotto one of these little ones a cup of cold water 
only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto 
you, he shall in no wise lose his reward" An act 
insignificant in itself — the giving of a cup of 
cold water in the name of a disciple — that is, 
because you love the Lord Jesus Christ and 






98 GIVING. 



the cause for which he freely poured out his 
heart's blood — is invested with its true moral 
quality by the motive from which it springs. 
This hallows it in the sight of God, and it be- 
comes a treasure laid up in heaven. All such 
gifts will enhance the riches of the eternal 
inheritance of the child of God. If you are 
wise, you will embrace all opportunities to lay 
up these treasures. 

The method of giving demands a w T ord. 
There is a best way of doing every good thing. 
There is a best way of giving as a means of 
grace. The rule already referred to requires 
three things that are essential to the best 
method of giving: 

Forethought. Lay by in store for a specific 
purpose. This provision is a stroke of divine 
wisdom. The objects for which your gifts are 
reserved are held in your thoughts, and thus 
get a stronger hold upon your heart. Every 
dollar thus accumulated has a sort of separate 
consecration, and brings a separate blessing. 
It is a blessed privilege to plan, to labor, to 



GIVING. 99 



save for Christ in this way. One of the no- 
blest and largest Christian givers of our time 
said, in reply to some suggestion as to the di- 
rection his future gifts should take, "I have 
all my plans made, and know where to put 
every dollar I shall be able to give." As a 
steward of your Lord's money, you cannot 
without this forethought bestow your gifts 
properly. Careless giving results in robbing 
worthy objects of beneficence of that to which 
they are entitled. If you give to an impostor, 
you thereby rob the Lord's poor. Careless 
giving in many cases is no better than stingi- 
ness in its results. Such giving is fruitful of 
vicious mendicancy, and a damage to every 
good cause that needs men's money and good- 
will. When one of these careless givers finds 
that he has been deceived into giving to an 
unworthy object, he is too apt to indemnify 
himself for his haste and folly by rejecting the 
claims of the most sacred cause that may next 
be presented to him. There is too much real 
suffering, and too many demands for help for 



100 GIVING. 



enterprises of undoubted worthiness, for any 
Christian to be careless in the bestowment of 
his benefactions. Forethought for a cause 
awakens love for it, incites to prayer for it, and 
prevents hasty misapplication of your Lord's 
bounty. 

Regularity. Give regularly, systematically. 
The law of periodicity is potent in the spirit- 
ual as in the natural sphere. The tendency to 
repeat the same acts and processes at the 
recurrence of given times is well known to 
students both of intellectual philosophy and 
physical law. Compliance with the rule of 
giving regularly once a week will bring you 
under the operation of this law of habit. You 
will find an increasing readiness to give, and 
increasing delight in giving. Beneficence will 
be the very law of your life, and you will 
realize the experience of that beatitude so 
strange to so many who are called Christians: 
It is more blessed to give than to receive. 

Frequency. Once a week is the rule as to 
frequency in giving. Inspired wisdom is ap- 



GIVING. 101 



parent in this requirement. It serves a good 
purpose by keeping you in remembrance of 
the claims of the cause of Christ. These 
claims are too apt to be forgotten amid the 
hurry and turmoil of the world. If presented 
and responded to only at long intervals, they 
will lose their force, and may be crowded out 
of the mind altogether. 

This frequent giving is promotive of a true 
economy. Many useless expenditures will be 
prevented when you remember that the claims 
of the Lord's treasury must be met without 
delay. Long credits in secular business are 
productive of extravagance and other evils, 
and they work similar evils in the religious 
sphere. Frequent giving keeps the heart alive 
to the duty and privilege of Christian benefi- 
cence. A stream that flows on with a quick 
and steady motion is wholesomer than a pond 
that is drained off once a year. 

A Fiji Christian at a meeting of his Church 
offered to pay in advance the whole amount of 
his weekly contributions for the entire year. 



102 GIVING. 



"No," said the pastor, "take it all back ex- 
cept for one month.. The hinges of a door 
will get rusty if you open it only once a year." 

You would think it a great loss and hard- 
ship if you were allowed to pray or to offer a 
song of praise to God only once in six months 
or a year. For precisely the same reasons 
you should protest against any arrangement 
that would deprive you of the privilege of fre- 
quent giving as a means of grace. 

By no act of a Christian life can you express 
more directly your love to your Lord and to 
his cause. By no other act can you place 
your feet more exactly in the foot-prints of 
Jesus. By no other act do you place your 
own believing, loving heart closer to his. By 
no other act can you prove to the world the 
sincerity and depth of your devotion to him, 
and your love for the souls he loved and died 
to save. By no other act can you more surely 
and effectively promote your growth in grace. 
The liberal soul shall be made fat. 




SORROW. 

"f have replenished every sorrowful soul." Jer- 
emiah xxxi. 25. 

A FFLICTION springeth not from the dust. 
Sorrow enters into God's purpose and 
plan. If it were not best, it would not be so. 
The mystery of it we cannot solve. Of its 
philosophy we get luminous hints in the word 
of God. x To say God might have prevented the 
existence of all sorrow, is idle talk. It is true 
that he could have refrained from creating 
any thing. He could have limited his crt ation 
to only inanimate things and brute beasts. 
But he chose to create rational creatures, and 
to endow them with freedom. In the exercise 
of this freedom sin and suffering resulted. 
By no other means could there have been in 

(103) 



104 SORROW. 



the universe a race of beings capable of virtue 
and holiness. Be sure that God did the best 
thing that could be done. This the believing 
heart can accept on God's testimony. This 
the believing heart feels to be so, though it 
may be unable to explain the great truth. It 
is better to travel the path of sorrow and con- 
flict to eternal life than not to be at all. The 
promise is given to us that what we know not 
now we shall know hereafter. We can adopt 
the logic of faith: as our Father in heaven is 
true to his promise to comfort and support me 
under sorrow now, he will not fail to give the 
fuller light he hath promised hereafter. Faith, 
already enjoying the earnest of its inheritance, 
can wait for the full manifestation of the sons 
of God. 

For the fuller life and wider affinities that 
await the believer in the world to come this 
sorrow is part of his preparation. The fellow- 
ship of the saints in glory will be sweetened 
for eternity by their common experiences of 
sorrow and suffering on earth. They have 






SORROW. 105 



fought the same battle; they have felt the 
same agonies; they have clung in the midst of 
the storm to the same promises, and in the 
darkness lifted their swimming eyes to the 
one light that never grows dim; they have 
met the same last enemy, death; and this 
identity of experience will enhance the tender- 
ness and sacredness of the bond that binds 
them iot eternity. By dying-beds eyes have 
met and hands have clasped, and breaking 
hearts have had new revelations of the ever- 
lastingness of holy love and of the meaning of 
immortality. The husband and wife, whose 
mingled tears have fallen hot on the face of a 
dead child, are thenceforth doubly wedded in 
the bitter sacrament of sorrow. O sorrowing 
brothers and sisters of earth and time, ^ylien 
you reach heaven it will be found that the 
sighings and sobbings of this present time will 
have tuned your spirits for the melodies of 
the great company of the redeemed that shall 
be gathered on Mount Zion out of every nation, 
kindred, tribe, and tongue ! 



106 SORROW. 



Ileal sorrow is very bitter. It is your 
thought, There is no sorrow like my sorrow. 
That is true. The heart knoweth its own bit- 
terness. Any thing but this — O my God, any 
thing but this ! — you cry in your agony. If 
my children were religious, I could bear any 
privation— I could live in a hovel, and live on 
bread and water. If God would only spare 
the life of my child, I can bear any thing else 
that may befall me. I could have borne 
calamity if I had been spared the shame that 
results from crime. The blow falls where it 
hurts most. This is the law of sorrow, and 
this is the lot of all. The white-robed hosts 
have gone up through great tribulation. If 
you go up, you must tread that path. The 
one fact of death alone is enough to make it 
so. Jesus, with heaving breast and wet eyes 
at the grave of Lazarus, tells us what death is 
to love. Real sorrow is the furnace, burning 
with seven-fold heat, in which the gold is re- 
fined and the dross consumed. There is nothing 
left but to trust in God and lie low at his feet. 






SORROW. 107 



A great sorrow is a revealer of unbelief, and 
gives new power to faith. It never leaves us 
the same. Not until we reach heaven shall we 
know how many souls have learned the secret 
of the Lord in the school of sorrow. The 
faith that comes out of a great affliction un- 
shaken is stronger forever. 

Jesus stands at the head of humanity by 
virtue of his pre-eminence in suffering no less 
than by his pre-eminence in goodness. He 
was the Man of Sorrows. There were ele- 
ments of bitterness in his grief that none could 
share, or fully comprehend. He trod the 
wine-press alone. There was an awful depth 
in his sorrow that could be fathomed only by 
the Father to whom in his agony he prayed. 
Even the holy angels that ministered unto 
him could not measure the meaning of the 
mighty grief that drew them wondering from 
the skies. The sorrowing Christ is the refuge 
of a sorrowing world. Because he has drunk 
of our bitter cup he is our merciful high-priest. 
The Captain of our salvation was perfected 



108 SORROW. 



through suffering, and we tread the same 
path to the perfection of character and destiny 
that awaits us. 

What God permits is best. All things work 
together for good to them that love him. The 
heart-felt persuasion of this truth fortifies the 
soul against all external calamity, and subor- 
dinates the sharpest pains and heaviest woes 
to the development of the character that will 
be adapted to the pure joys and sublime com- 
panionships of heaven. 

The shock of a great sorrow may for a time 
almost paralyze the faith of a true believer, 
but it will rally sooner or later. After a fire 
has swept through one of the vast red- wood 
forests in California, some of the great trees 
die, while others, though scorched and black- 
ened, are unhurt. Cutting into the trees, it is 
found that the trees that were killed by the 
fire were already decayed at the heart. So the 
fires of affliction do not destroy true faith — ■ 
they only test and develop its power. Sorrow 
is the suprme test of faith. The more inex- 



SORROW. 109 



plicable the calamity that wrings the heart, the 
more completely is the soul shut up to abso- 
lute trust in God. In this attitude it gets 
closer to the very heart of the loving Father 
in heaven, and into more perfect harmony 
with his righteous will. The soul that has 
been comforted of God under a heavy sorrow 
has learned a secret of the Lord that a holy 
angel might covet to know— the secret whis- 
pered to the soul by that blessed Comforter 
which can alone enter its inner sanctuary. 
Sorrow has started and helped on the way to 
glory a great company of souls beloved of 
God. When a young and ambitious physician, 
Dr. Abram Penn, of Virginia, on his return 
from a long journey, found that his fair young 
bride had died while he was gone. The shock 
was great, but his life was changed. Kneel- 
ing on her grave, he resolved to obey the call 
of God to preach the gospel, and rose with a 
new purpose in his smitten heart. 

The prolonged sufferings of good men and 
women present a painful problem to many 



110 SORROW. 



minds. Why does not God interfere? He 
could give them relief by curing their diseases, 
or by taking them out of the world. But he 
does neither. They are left to suffer on and 
on through long years of pain and sorrow. 
They would welcome death with joy, but it 
comes not. A venerable Christian man be- 
longing to my pastoral charge at Santa Rosa, 
California, suffered intensely during the last 
year of his life. At times his agonies were 
indescribable. One day he sent for me. After 
a hurried greeting, he said, with quivering lip: 

" The medicine I am taking prolongs my 
life, which is only prolonging my pain, and 
keeping me out of my rest in heaven. Would 
it be wrong for me to stop using the medi- v 
cine?" 

" I think, my dear old friend, that you had 
better continue to take the medicine. In the 
providence of God it has been provided for 
you, and it would be a sort of negative suicide 
to refuse it." 

The old man burst into tears, while his frame 



SORROW, 



111 



shook with a great struggle within, as he re- 
marked: 

"I will take the medicine, and trust my 
God." 

We prayed together, and the old sufferer 
found — not deliverance from his terrible 
sufferings — but grace to help him in time 
of need. He, and Paul, and a great company 
of suffering brothers and sisters, have learned 
more fully why their thorns in the flesh were 
not removed in answer to the prayers wrung 
from them in their agonies. Yes, it is a great 
multitude that have gone up through these 
great tribulations. You should not murmur 
should you be called to walk in the way they 
have trod. 





THE GOAT 

"Go on unto perfection." Hebrews vi. i. 

T T 7E come now, at the end of these chap- 
* * ters, to a question of the deepest in- 
terest to all: 

Is there any experience in a renewed soul that 
cannot he described by the word growth? 

The answer is, No. The same thing has 
been called by different names. Christian men 
and women have agreed in their lives, but not 
in their terminology. At times the dispu- 
tants have lost more in temper than they have 
gained in knowledge of the truth. Certain 
propositions have been affirmed and denied 
with equal emphasis by a great company of 
believers whose beautiful lives have equally 
proved the genuineness of their faith and the 

(112) 



THE GOAL, 113 



transforming power of the grace of God. All 
who have been truly born into the new life, 
and are following Christ, are substantially 
agreed in their Christian experience- They 
find growth in grace to be a fact; they find 
sanctification to be a fact. Both are promised, 
and both are given, to all who follow on to 
know the Lord. 

When growth in grace begins, sanctification 
begins- Every accepted believer is initially 
a sanctified believer. The love of God is not 
shed abroad in an unsanctified heart. The joy 
of the Holy Ghost is not given to an unsancti- 
fied soul. 

But what shall be said of the experiences of 
the great company of excellent men and women 
who tell us they have been sanctified wholly 
by a process as distinct as that of justification 
or regeneration in their souls, and date a new 
and higher life therefrom? Of their good 
sense and sincerity there can be no doubt. 
That they have lived lives of singular spiritu- 
ality and fruitfulness no one will deny. They 
S 



114 THE GOAL. 



are not fanatics or impostors. What then? 
There is a reality of some sort in their experi- 
ences. We have known many whose after- 
lives exhibited a sweetness and joyfulness jus- 
tifying the claim that a mighty impulse had 
somehow been given to their movement heaven- 
ward. What was the gracious secret? Just 
what God whispers to every soul that claims 
the fulfillment of the promise that they that 
wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, 
and mount up on wings as eagles. In some 
cases after spiritual declension there has been 
a return unto the Lord, and the restoration to 
the penitent and believing soul of the joys of 
his salvation. In other cases, while there was 
no abatement in the use of the forms of relig- 
ion, its power was lost. Quickened by the 
Holy Spirit, the soul was led to seek the power 
as well as the form of godliness, and, sprinkled 
with atoning blood through faith in the Lord 
Jesus Christ, it has received the full baptism 
of the Holy Spirit. Was this sanctification ? 
Yes. Was it growth? Yes. Some called it 



THE GOAL. 115 



by the one name, some by the other. It was 
the setting apart of the son! anew and without 
reserve to the Christian life — and that was 
sanctification in the true sense of the word. 
Growth is a process of which sanctification is 
the result, and all growth is an increase of 
sanctification. It was an increase of spiritual 
light and power — and that was growth. There 
are Christians who look back to one such ex- 
perience, and regard it as epochal in their 
lives. There are others who again and again 
receive these special baptisms without con- 
scious reactions. Their growth in grace is 
wonderfully accelerated in such seasons; and 
it does not cease, for our gracious Lord gives 
grace for grace. In climbing a peak of the 
Sierra Nevadas, after much toil you reach a 
shelf, or table, that serves as a resting-place, 
and from which you have an enchanting view 
of the smiling valley below. Inspirited and 
refreshed, you resume the ascent, and after 
further toil you reach another stopping-place, 
where you again rest and gaze with delight 



116 THE GOAL. 



upon the broader landscape that stretches away 
beneath your feet. And so on and up you go 
until at last you stand on the summit, and 
shout for joy as the whole sweep of the glorious 
view bursts upon your ravished vision. So it is 
in the Christian life. There are goals, but no 
stopping-place. It must go ever onward and 
upward. But do we not reach the summit at 
last? There is no summit to the hills of God 
— or rather they are all summits, rising higher 
and higher, and giving the redeemed soul 
wider horizons and brighter light as he goes 
on in his eternal upward movement. These 
hills of God stretch away through eternity. 
Many elect souls have for many blessed years 
gone on from grace to grace in this upward 
way; while others, dying young, have been 
caught up to God while the dew of their first 
heavenly baptism was fresh upon them. God, 
who guides the trusting soul that lives on in 
the path of duty, is not less gracious to the 
trusting soul called early from the conflict. 
In the beginning of the Christian life there 



THE GOAL. 117 



are usually reactions, partial lapses, stumblings, 
baitings. Usually, we say, these may be expect- 
ed. Children, in learning to walk, have falls 
at first, and make missteps. The young Chris- 
tian is but a babe in Christ, and cannot be ex- 
pected to possess the knowledge, stability, and 
strength, of maturity. , He grows in all these 
elements of the Christian life. Weakness is not 
disease ; feebleness is not sin. His knowledge 
enlarges, he is more and more established, and 
becomes stronger in the strength of God. The 
child becomes a man . The novice becomes well 
instructed in the things of God. He goes on 
to perfection. 

What is this perfection ? The perfection not 
of the glorified in heaven, but of the sanctified 
on earth; the perfection of a faith that does 
not waver, the perfection of a consecration that 
keeps nothing back, the perfection of a love 
that never grows cold, the perfection of a hope 
that is full of glory. It is the perfection of a 
soul that receives now all that God proposes to 
bestow now. 



118 THE GOAL. 



This perfection does not stop growth in 
grace; it removes the hinderances, and makes 
that growth more rapid. It does not place its 
possessor beyond the reach of temptation, but 
it does enable him to resist successfully, his 
faith quenching all the fiery darts of the 
wicked. It does not place him above the reach 
of care and sorrow, but enables him to run with 
patience the race set before him. It does not 
relieve him from liability to errors in judgment, 
but it does save him from willful departures 
from the right way. It does not save him from 
the necessity to watch and pray, but it does arm 
him against all the wiles of Satan. It does 
not protect him from the assaults of the dark 
trinity of evil — the world, the flesh, and the 
devil— but it does give him the victory of faith. 
In a word, he is not saved from the possibility 
of reaction, but from the necessity for it. The 
witnessing Spirit that fills his soul with the 
sense of sonship with God need never depart. 
The flame of love that burns in his heart need 
never be quenched. The hope that gives him 



THE GOAL. 119 



blessed anticipations of the glory of God in its 
fall manifestation in the life to come need never 
grow dim. There is no backward > movement, 
and there is no stopping-place. 

Thus understood, entire sanctification is a 
blessed, glorious reality. The good pleasure 
of God's goodness will not stop short of this in 
a willing soul. It is purity, peace, joy in the 
Holy Ghost; not as an occasional flash of bless- 
edness, but as the normal, abiding experience 
of all in whom the will of God is fully wrought. 

I was profoundly interested in this question 
about twenty-five years ago. I was at the time 
pastor of the Church at San Jose, California. 
One bright morning I was going through the 
fields on my way to see a young Presbyterian 
friend who lay dying of consumption out in 
"The Willows," about N two miles from the city. 
The air was balmy and the sky cloudless ; the 
birds were singing in the sycamores overhead, 
and the sunshine lay bright and warm upon 
the beautiful valley. As I walked slowly on, 
my soul was attuned to the calm, the harmony, 



120 THE GOAL. 



and sweetness of Nature, and I felt a mighty 
longing for that perfect peace of God, that rest 
of faith, which had so long engaged my thought 
and prayer. Lifting my eyes, I beheld the sun 
in the heavens shining with unclouded splen- 
dor. Instantly the mighty truth flashed upon 
me: The San of righteousness always shines, and 
upon the soul turned toward it in humble, trusting 
obedience, it will shine forever! My spirit was 
instantly flooded with a great joy, and I said, 
"This is w T hat I have sought — the Sun of 
righteousness shines forever!" Long, long 
years of toil and trial, of pain and sorrow, 
have passed since that hour, and the same light 
illumines the page as I write these last lines 
with a glowing heart. 



THE END. 



